Egypt Army Sets 6-Month Blueprint, but Future Role Is Unclear

Military police officers forced the remaining protesters out of Tahrir Square on Monday, and the government urged all Egyptians to return to work.Credit
Scott Nelson for The New York Times

CAIRO — The military officers who have governed Egypt since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak on Friday have laid out a brisk six-month timetable in which to draft constitutional amendments, submit them to a referendum and elect a new government, stirring debate about the military’s long-term intentions.

Some in the opposition welcomed the timetable as evidence that the officers were eager to turn over power to a civilian authority. But others, noting that the military has so far excluded civilians from the transitional government, questioned whether the speedy schedule might signal just the opposite. They worry that the military might be trying to manipulate events to preserve its power by rushing the process and denying political parties and candidates enough time to organize for a meaningful, fair election that could elect a strong civilian government.

Two generals on the governing Supreme Military Council presented the plan — which calls for writing the amendments in 10 days and holding the referendum within two months — in a meeting on Sunday night with the revolution’s young leaders.

The meeting appeared to be the military’s first significant outreach to the civilian opponents of Mr. Mubarak, and two of the young protest organizers, true to their movement’s Internet roots, promptly summarized the meeting in a post on Facebook.

“The first time an Egyptian official sat down to listen more than speak,” they wrote of their meeting with the generals, Mahmoud Hijazi and Abdel Fattah. The two young leaders, Wael Ghonim and Amr Salama, also praised the generals’ attentive demeanor and the absence of the usual “parental tone (you do not know what is good for you, son).”

Still, the two reserved judgment about the military’s plan, and others in the group said their coalition had yet to make a final assessment of it.

“This meeting was just for the military to tell us about their plans,” said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, one of the revolution’s young leaders. “We have asked for another meeting this week to tell them about our plans. Then we will see.”

Egypt has effectively been under direct military control since Sunday, when the council suspended the Constitution and dissolved Parliament. And some in the opposition, including the Nobel Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, have repeatedly warned that hasty elections could leave the fledgling democracy so weak that it could invite the rise of another military strongman.

A communiqué issued on Monday by the Supreme Military Council appeared to walk a fine line in grappling with a variety of problems in governing a restive Egypt. In responding to a series of strikes by state workers, journalists and the police on Monday, the council issued a forceful exhortation that some read as a veiled threat, although it did not threaten specific penalties.

A Western diplomat who knows Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the defense minister and leader of the military government, said it was clear that he did not relish his high-profile role and did not want to keep it.

“My strong sense is there is no real desire to prolong this period,” the diplomat said. “The field marshal does not seem really interested in being the government of Egypt. He would prefer to take the armed forces back, to have their very large and very comfortable arrangement in Egyptian society and let the civilians take charge of government.”

But, the diplomat said, it remained to be seen whether a swift transition to democracy was possible. “The issue is whether this is the best thing or not the best thing,” he said.

Some of the young protest organizers who met with the generals said they were troubled that the military seemed cool to the idea of negotiating with Mr. ElBaradei, a more experienced figure whom the organizers have chosen as their point man for talks.

“We tried to tell them they should, but they weren’t welcoming to him,” said Mr. el-Ghazaly Harb, a 32-year-old surgeon. “We hope it is not definitive.”

As it moved to stabilize the country at home, the new military government also lodged formal requests with the European Union and the British government to freeze the assets of all the senior officials of Mr. Mubarak’s government.

Mr. Mubarak’s son, Gamal, a former investment banker and senior official of the former governing party, owns a house in London that is valued at about $10 million.

The younger Mr. Mubarak has become a focus of criticism since his father’s ouster because of the vast wealth he and his friends seemed to have amassed from the privatization of Egypt’s state-run businesses.

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One of his friends, the steel magnate and political power broker Ahmed Ezz, made a public appearance on Monday for the first time since the protests began three weeks ago. Once known for his brash, commanding demeanor, he spoke in a television interview in humble tones and sought to distance himself from the violence last week, when gangs of men associated with the governing party assaulted the protesters in Tahrir Square.

Rumors swirled about the whereabouts of the former president, who has not been seen in public since he bucked plans for a graceful exit and delivered a defiant reassertion of his power in a speech on Thursday night. He had reportedly left Cairo for his vacation home in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik.

On Monday, Egypt’s ambassador to the United States, Sameh Shoukry, said on NBC’s “Today” show that Mr. Mubarak, 82, was “possibly in somewhat of bad health.”

In recent appearances, Mr. Mubarak had appeared to have fully recuperated from gallbladder surgery in Germany last year. But two Cairo newspapers — one of them state-run — reported that Mr. Mubarak was depressed and refusing to take his medication, and that he had fainted at his vacation home. The reports could not be confirmed.

And in an incongruous display of revolutionary fervor, hundreds of police officers — who only recently had tried to crush the public protests — staged a second day of demonstrations outside the Interior Ministry to demand better wages. Officials said they had promised to double police salaries and benefits in an attempt to get the police back on the street to stop the protests.

On the island of Zamalek, a group of archaeologists demonstrated for jobs and for the ouster of the antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, whom they accused of corruption.

The central bank ordered all banks to close on Monday after a strike at one privately owned institution. Tuesday is a holiday celebrating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, and the banks will not reopen until Wednesday. The stock market is expected to remain closed all week.

Eager to tamp down the strikes, the governing military council urged employees to return to work. “It was noticed that some sectors in the state organized protests despite the return of normal life at a time where all groups and sectors of the population should come together,” a spokesman announced on state television.

In addition to harming the economy, the statement warned, the protests create “a climate when irresponsible elements may carry out illegal acts.” But the military stopped short of threatening any action if strikers did not heed its call.

Two of the revolutionary organizers also said they had received approval from the generals to begin a campaign to raise about $17 billion to rebuild Egypt and compensate the families of those killed during the revolt. And in their Facebook post, they said they were encouraged about the prospects for democracy.

“We all sensed a sincere desire to preserve the gains of the revolution and the unprecedented respect for right of young people to express their views,” they wrote, calling the revolution “a historic achievement that has not happened since the era of the pharaohs.”

Dawlat Magdy, Mona El-Naggar and Liam Stack contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on February 15, 2011, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Egypt Army Sets 6-Month Blueprint, but Future Role Is Unclear. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe